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Chu Hsi (1130–1200) was born in Fukien province but made his home in Anhui. He enjoyed a relatively successful career in the government, but he was far better known as one of the leading proponents of neo-Confucianism, which dominated intellectual life during the Sung dynasty. In fact, ever since the Sung, every student’s education in the Confucian classics has begun with Chu Hsi’s commentaries. The pomegranate arrived in China from Central Asia via the Silk Road more than a thousand years before this poem was written. But within a few hundred years of its arrival it became so popular that people started calling the fifth lunar month Pomegranate Month. This is when its red fruit begins to form, while the flower is still in bloom. The fruit itself often appears in Chinese art as a symbol for a womb that contains countless offspring. The poet is also reminded that, like the pomegranate, his own neo-Confucian ideas are full of promise, and yet the country’s elite (on horseback or in horse-drawn carts) do not pay them the attention they deserve. Some editions attribute this poem to Han Yu (768–824).

On the Pomegranate Flower

CHU HSI

Pomegranate flowers brighten eyes in June

as soon as they appear their fruit begins to form

but neither carts nor horses visit this poor place

where ruby blossoms lie upon the emerald moss